Prose­cu­tors seek prison for Co­hen

Michael Co­hen, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s for­mer lawyer, should re­ceive a “sub­stan­tial” prison term of roughly four years, de­spite his co­op­er­a­tion, fed­eral prose­cu­tors in New York said Fri­day.

Co­hen, 52, is to be sen­tenced in Man­hat­tan next week for two sep­a­rate guilty pleas: one for cam­paign fi­nance vi­o­la­tions and fi­nan­cial crimes charged by fed­eral prose­cu­tors in Man­hat­tan, and the other for ly­ing to Congress in the Rus­sia in­quiry, filed by the Of­fice of the Spe­cial Coun­sel in Wash­ing­ton.

In an ad­di­tional fil­ing Fri­day evening, prose­cu­tors said for­mer Trump cam­paign chair­man Paul Manafort lied to them about his con­tacts with a Rus­sian as­so­ciate and Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fi­cials.

Prose­cu­tors in Man­hat­tan said the crimes Co­hen had com­mit­ted “marked a pat­tern of de­cep­tion that per­me­ated his pro­fes­sional life,” and though he was seek­ing a re­duced sen­tence for pro­vid­ing as­sis­tance to the gov­ern­ment, he did not de­serve much le­niency.

“He was mo­ti­vated to do so by per­sonal greed, and re­peat­edly used his power and in­flu­ence for de­cep­tive ends,” the prose­cu­tors said in a lengthy memo to Judge Wil­liam H. Pauley III.

At the same time, the spe­cial coun­sel’s of­fice re­leased its own sen­tenc­ing rec­om­men­da­tion to the judge for Co­hen’s guilty plea for mis­lead­ing Congress.

The spe­cial coun­sel seemed to of­fer a more pos­i­tive view of Co­hen’s co­op­er­a­tion with the Rus­sia in­ves­ti­ga­tion, say­ing he “has gone to sig­nif­i­cant lengths to as­sist the spe­cial coun­sel’s in­ves­ti­ga­tion.”

Co­hen has emerged as one of the big­gest threats to Trump’s pres­i­dency, pro­vid­ing the spe­cial coun­sel’s of­fice and prose­cu­tors in Man­hat­tan with ma­te­rial in dozens of hours of in­ter­views. Robert Mueller, the spe­cial coun­sel, has been in­ves­ti­gat­ing Rus­sian in­ter­fer­ence in the 2016 elec­tion and po­ten­tial ties to the Trump cam­paign.

On Tues­day, Mueller asked a judge in Wash­ing­ton to im­pose lit­tle or no prison time on Michael T. Flynn, Trump’s first na­tional se­cu­rity ad­viser, say­ing he had pro­vided sub­stan­tial as­sis­tance to his of­fice’s Rus­sia in­ves­ti­ga­tion. Flynn faces up to six months in prison un­der fed­eral guide­lines af­ter plead­ing guilty to one count of ly­ing to the FBI.

In the Man­hat­tan plea in Au­gust, Co­hen im­pli­cated Trump in hush­money pay­ments to two women to con­ceal af­fairs they said they had with Trump.

On Nov. 29, Co­hen en­tered his se­cond plea, re­veal­ing in court that Trump had been more in­volved in dis­cus­sions over a po­ten­tial deal to build a tower in Moscow than was pre­vi­ously known. He also said those dis­cus­sions had con­tin­ued un­til June 2016, well af­ter Trump had clinched the Re­pub­li­can nom­i­na­tion and only five months be­fore the elec­tion.

Trump’s in­ter­est in build­ing a Trump Tower Moscow led Co­hen to make nu­mer­ous in­quiries with Rus­sian of­fi­cials and other Krem­lin-linked fig­ures about the fea­si­bil­ity of the project, rais­ing the pos­si­bil­ity that the ne­go­ti­a­tions might have given the Rus­sians lever­age over Trump when he was run­ning for pres­i­dent.

RICHARD DREW AP

Michael Co­hen, for­mer lawyer to Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, should spend a “sub­stan­tial” amount of time in prison, de­spite his co­op­er­a­tion, prose­cu­tors said.